Galveston is a 2018 drama about a dying hitman who, after escaping a setup, returns to his hometown of Galveston where he plans his revenge.
No matter the film she finds herself in, Elle Fanning has consistently proven she’s one of the best of her generation, refusing to align herself with movies that would take advantage of her genes, instead, accepting parts that challenge us, fearlessly putting herself out there in ways that absolutely grip. In Mélanie Laurent‘s latest crime thriller Galveston, she does it once again, setting a new bar for what we can expect in a film that is simply seeped in mood and atmosphere, even if it works hard to split its audience.
Roy Cady (Ben Foster) wordlessly storms out of the doctor’s office, the X-ray and few bits of exposition from the physician all he thinks he needs to hear in knowing the worst. It’s terminal. Heading to his job as a local enforcer for a mob thug named Stan (Beau Bridges), things only spiral for the worse as he’s eventually set up and meant to be left for dead, but manages to escape, taking teenage prostitute Rocky (Fanning), who is tied up and caught in the crossfire, with him. His plan? Head to Galveston and get his revenge, and after a quick stop at a rundown house where Rocky snatches who she claims is her baby sister Tiffany (played by twins Tinsley and Anniston Price) they hole up in a hotel on a beach, awaiting whatever or whomever is coming their way.
Based on Nic Pizzolatto‘s novel, adapted by Jim Hammett, Galveston is not without its impact, the film made so by Laurent’s caustic, gritty direction and no-nonsense approach, her ‘style’ being no style, instead efforting to make it all feel breathlessly authentic. The story however is the simpler side, one we’ve seen in shades of different greys before, losing bits of momentum in drawn-out sequences that are designed to prop up the characters but less so the action. That said, you probably won’t care all that much – and let’s be honest, there’s a long list of movies with little to say that have thrived on the work of its actors – as both Foster and Fanning do what amounts to arguably their best work.
Roy is a broken man, saddled with alcoholism and guilt, facing a sudden mortality that splinters him, yet Foster takes these tropes and gives it plenty of weight, his road to revenge filled with redemption, or at least attempts at it. This a haunted, dangerous man gasping his last in a room sucked free of oxygen. It’s a terrific performance. Bridges, who is basically a cameo, gives his few minutes of screen time a jarring bit of ferocity as does C.K. McFarland as the manager of the hotel whose brief presence is almost insurmountable.
Then there’s Fanning. Here’s a young talent ever so slowly redefining herself with every role she takes, so perfectly cast as Rocky, it’s a little unnerving. There’s a deep, traumatized edge to her that fills you with sorrow and ache for the choices that led her here, and credit goes to Laurent for not making this a love story in the traditional sense but something altogether more memorable. There are heaps of shattered souls adrift in the shadowed corners of the movies, and maybe two more won’t much matter, but there might not be any two more deserving of just one chance at better.
Galveston is for a long stretch, exactly what it portends to be, a doggedly brutal and sometimes harrowing fight for life. It fits snuggly into a long string of similar fare where violence is the name of the game. However, there are still surprises here, especially in its remarkable ending, one that for many may really give a spin. Yes, this is probably going to divide viewers, some feeling unsatisfied by what appears to be a standard dark thriller with a WTF? finale, but for others, this will strike just right. It did for me.